Quality chasm

The charge to the Committee on Crossing the Quality Chasm: Adaptation
to Mental Health and Addictive Disorders was broad, encompassing
health care for both mental and substance-use conditions, the public and
private sectors, and the comprehensive range of issues addressed in the 2001
Institute of Medicine report Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health
System for the 21st Century. The committee was pleased to be asked to
address this breadth of issues.

Ensuring patient safety is the first critical step in improving quality of care. At all
levels, health care workers make decisions every day involving patient safety. Patient
safety is about protecting patients from incurring harm while they are receiving
health care. It is an international issue. Although safe care has always been
a priority, in recent times we have seen a growing realization of how unsafe care
affects all the key stakeholder groups in the health care sector.

Plant parts are probably the most difficult to identify as they consist of pieces of dried roots,
barks, leaves, berries etc. at varying stages of processing, and can look fairly similar to one
another. It is not worthwhile for enforcers to learn to identify such raw materials unless they are
going to deal with such shipments or domestic trade on a regular basis. It is best to use experts
when packaging for raw materials is not labeled.

Performance Measurement: Accelerating Improvement is the first in a
new series of reports by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), representing the
latest phase of the ongoing IOM effort on health care quality. This report
introduces a framework and implementation strategy for translating public
and professional concerns about performance and accountability into measures
of health care quality.